Election Day, Part I: A Scene From ‘The Walking Dead’

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I woke up early this morning. I wanted to go vote before work because I knew it would be crazy and that trying to squeeze it in on my lunch break would just be completely futile. So I arose at six in the morning, showered, shat, got dressed and headed down to my precinct. When I got there, the freak show was on full display!

The line was longer than Godzilla’s peener and everyone seemed to be incredibly peeved and irritable. The worst part, I was a whole half of an hour early and I was like the ninetieth person in line. What could have been a long quiet wait in the fantastic morning weather of Southwest Florida, ended up being a long noisy wait where every single elderly person around me wanted to complain and whine about everything from Barack Obama to how many people got there in line before them.

One old dude behind me said one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard – he said, “They shouldn’t put amendments and judges on the ballot because I’m not that educated on those things.” Right dude, thanks for that pearl of well-aged wisdom. Truth be told, it’s your uneducated senior citizen ass that is responsible for the mess we are now stuck in. Thank you for all the negative electoral consequences of your uneducated decisions over several uneducated decades! So who does this clown shoes-wearing dipshit think is supposed to vote on that stuff? Government? Besides, if you aren’t well-versed on the amendments and the judicial bullshit, don’t vote on it. You aren’t forced to bubble in everything.

Shortly after that, some old fucker pointed out an elderly black lady pulling up into a handicap spot in her SUV. She threw up her handicap placard and got out with a very noticeable limp. He responded, “Look at that! She’s not handicapped! I bet I know who she’s voting for!” To which I replied to this bigoted douchesack, “What do you mean by that?” To which he said, “Well look at her, she’s black.” “Oh really?” I replied, “And what color is Herman Cain and Allen West?” That shut him up, as two ladies behind him chuckled.

A group of old guys then went on to bitch and moan about how long people were taking inside the precinct. “Why is it taking so long?!” “Are they reading all the amendments in the booth?!” “Didin’t they go through their voter guide?!” Fast-forward to inside the precinct, where I finished in under three minutes then waited in the long line for the scanner, about twenty minutes, as these two idiots, who walked in before me, were still at their ballot boxes bubbling in their answers. Yeah, who’s taking forever now asshats?

It should be noted that 80-to-90 percent of the people waiting in line with me were from a luxurious neighborhood around the corner that was made up of mostly retirees. With that said, it was clear who the majority of them would be voting for. However, some were obnoxiously vocal about it and I had to add in my two cents because if you are going to howl like a jackass for the world to involuntarily hear, then you deserve to be challenged every step of the way. The “Anybody but Obama” crowd was very adamant that they were going to push Romney on everyone in the raucous crowd until they got to their voting booths.

A guy flat out asked me who I was voting for. I said it was none of his business because the answer “Gary Johnson” isn’t what he wants to hear and he probably has no idea who that is. In fact, he said, “Well if it isn’t Romney it’s got to be Obama!” I said, “It’s neither.” He said, “Then what are you doing here, those are your choices.” I then calmly explained that there are several choices and that I was making one of those. This set him off and he got into the irritable Fox News zombie tirade that is very common in my part of the world. “A vote for anybody else is a vote for Obama!” he yelled. “A principled vote is just that, a principled vote” I replied. He spent the better part of ten minutes trying to convince me I was wrong, which came to a crashing end when he said, “I’ve been on this Earth a hell of a lot longer than you have and you should respect my wisdom!” Seriously dude, what the fuck? I quickly retorted, “You see pal, that’s the problem with people like you (i.e. nearly everyone in the entire line). You go on and on about what’s best for the country and how you have the experience and we should all take you seriously but the truth is, you’ve been voting longer than most people and it is you and your generations’ bad electoral decisions that have got us into this mess! So you want me to trust you and your insight? Your insight is crap! Your insight is why I have to have a chunk taken out of my paycheck to pay for your entitlements – money I’ll never see. Your insight is why we have a foreign policy that has created more enemies than friends and why parents all over America are burying their twenty-something sons and daughters. Your insight is why we have swelling debt and no hope in sight. Your insight is why we have a budding police state and are afraid of our own shadows. Your insight is why failed corporations and banks get bailed out when they can’t handle the competition. Your insight has made us weak, vulnerable and broke. So what were you saying again?” He had no response other than calling me a “know-it-all prick”. Oh of course I am, because if you call me a dirty name no one will notice that you lost the argument. I guess I’ll see you in four years when you suddenly give a shit about politics again.

Anyway, so when I got into the precinct and away from senseless discussions with the local zombies, the elderly lady at the table where I sign in didn’t ask to see my I.D. In fact, she said “Do you see your name in the book?” I flipped some pages and said “There I am!” She replied “Okay sweetie, sign your name and go grab a ballot.” Really? It’s that easy? I could have been anyone signing off on any random name. Hell, I probably could’ve just acted like I was signing and got a ballot. And Floridians wonder why our state is rife with voter fraud?

So I went to my booth and bubbled in “Gary Johnson” for president and also bubbled in a few names for a few different offices. I ignored the amendments and the questions about judges. I was really only there for one thing, to vote for Johnson. If he wasn’t on the ballot, I wouldn’t have wasted my time with anything else. Of course I know that my guy won’t win but if he gets five percent of the vote, it will be a shock to the two party machine and that is what is most important to me.

With that being said, I will be watching the results. I don’t care who wins, as it won’t matter in the long-term or even the short-term really. I just want to see how it all unfolds, as I am a political junkie and regardless of who loses, I want to relish in the reactions of their supporters. Sorry to say Republicans but your boy Romney is probably going to lose by more than what people are anticipating. Then again, as I’ve experienced first hand, voter fraud is easy to commit and anything could happen – especially in Florida.